1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a picture filing device for systematically filing pictures in a recording medium, and relates to a digital camera having a picture filing function, and further relates to a method for managing a plurality of frame pictures recorded in a recording medium.
2. Description of the Related Art
A digital camera for recording a photographed frame picture is known. In this kind of the digital camera, the photographed frame picture is recorded in a recording medium of a memory card and so forth. The picture is recorded as digital data. Thus, when the digital data is taken into a personal computer or the like, it is possible to watch the picture by utilizing viewer software thereof. Meanwhile, in a case that it is desired to classify the pictures into photo-categories of sports and excursions, for instance, sub-folders of a sport folder and an excursion folder are made in a picture folder of the recording medium. The respective pictures may be classified into the sub-folders. Whereas the sub-folder is made by a personal computer in general, a technology for executing this operation with a digital camera is proposed (see Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication Nos. 11-98454 and 2000-236503, for example).
Upon booting the viewer software for the picture, an index-picture is displayed to list the pictures included in the picture folder. In this index-picture, the frame pictures are displayed as thumbnail images. When the sub-folders are made, folder names thereof are displayed together with icons representing the sub-folders. Upon clicking the icon of the sub-folder with a mouse, the corresponding sub-holder is opened to display the frame picture contained therein. By making the sub-folder, it is possible to copy and move the pictures in a lump sub-folder by sub-folder. Thus, management of the pictures becomes easy.
However, operations for making the sub-folder with a personal computer and for systematically classifying the photographed frame pictures are troublesome operations for a person unused to the personal computer. Meanwhile, the recording media of the memory card and so forth tend to have high capacity and are expected to have much higher capacity in future. In that case, the operation for systematically classifying the pictures plentifully recorded is likely to be an extremely troublesome operation.
Further, in the method for classifying the picture frames by making the sub-folder with the digital camera, there sometimes arises a problem concerning compatibility of a picture-storing format when the memory card is read by a different model and a card reader. In the case that there arises this kind of problem, it is impossible to read the picture file stored in the sub-folder. Since the format for storing the picture taken by the digital camera is defined in accordance with a standard, the sub-folder is not recognized by the other model and so forth which are not adaptable thereto, although the sub-folder is made. Thus, in this case, reading the picture file is likely to be impossible.